"Treachery, of
course," answered Trooper Tash Karnak, not taking his eyes from the
numbers scrolling up the screen in front of him. "You'll know it when
you
see it. It'll be the message printed in red, saying 'top secret
personal
information for Emperor Palpatine'."

"Ha ha,"
muttered Gima Tol. He scowled at his own screen, wondering whether
Karnak was
perpetually sarcastic with everyone, or whether it had something to do
with Tol
being a Twi'lek. As a former stormtrooper, Karnak was probably unused
to
interacting with non-humans in any way other than kicking them. Or
worse. Then
again, thought Tol, I'm probably being too
sensitive. Karnak's probably
just pissed off about having to take a pre-dawn trawl through two
months' worth
of communications records.

"'Cause if it
isn't," Karnak continued, "I'd sure like to know how they expect us
to find it. I mean if I was going to be a traitor, I'd make damn sure I didn't
leave any trace. What, do they think our traitor wants Lord Vader to
strangle him?"

"I heard
Vader'd left the base," Tol ventured, trying to make conversation.

"Unh-hunh. I
heard that too."

"Hey," Tol
said, so struck by an idea he'd just had that he forgot to worry about
whether
Karnak despised him, "maybe it's Vader."

"Maybe what's
Vader?"

"The
traitor."

Trooper Karnak
jumped noticeably and jammed one hand down on his terminal's freeze
button.
"Holy Saint Mynar!" he exclaimed, turning to stare at Tol where he
sat at the next terminal. "Are you crazy?" Karnak hissed. "You
watch what the fuck you're saying!"

"What?"
Tol protested, thoroughly confused.

"Mynar's
balls," the former stormtrooper muttered, in a tone of disgust. "You
people are so stupid it's a wonder the Rebellion survived. Don't talk about
Vader
like that," he went on, more urgently. "Not when I'm next to you,
anyway. I don't want to get caught in the conflagration when you
spontaneously
combust."

"Does he do
that to people?" Tol asked in amazement.

"I don't know,
and I don't want to know. I just know some things aren't smart to talk
about." Karnak turned back to his screen and started the information
scrolling upward again. A moment later Tol did the same.

"Sorry,"
Tol said awkwardly. "But ... " the idea was still burning in him, and
he really wanted to talk about it. Though if he tried that line of
conversation
with Karnak again, he was probably as stupid as the ex-stormtrooper
said he was.

The silence got
heavy. Finally Karnak sighed. "Okay," he said, still staring at his
screen. "What?"

"Well, I just
thought, Vader leaving the base, right when people are saying a traitor
told
the Empire where the meeting was going to be ... and right after
Commander
Skywalker and the Princess get kidnapped ... "

"So what? You
think he's behind it all?" Karnak looked around nervously, as if
expecting
an avenging Darth Vader to leap in through the ceiling. "No way. Look,
genius, Skywalker is Vader's kid. Okay? So he's gone looking for him.
So he's a
good father. So shut up."

Right, thought Tol. I'll
shut up. He rubbed his eyes and wondered, if there was some glaring
evidence of illicit activities on the screen in front of him, whether
he'd even
notice it. This was not the best time of the day for him. Of course, he
reminded himself, there were a lot of worse things he could be doing
right now.
He'd heard they even had people going through the garbage, searching
for
anything incriminating. Like what, he had no idea. Karnak was right,
this whole
thing was stupid. Did the officers expect their traitor would've
written a
rough draft of his treacherous message and then tossed it in the trash?

Then Tol felt
his
whole body going cold. Both of his tentacles involuntarily twitched.
"Hey," he said, in a very small voice.

"What?"
snapped the exasperated Karnak.

"Hey,"
Tol said again. "Um. Take a look at this."

Karnak got up
and
crossed to stand beside Tol's chair. He frowned at the screen.
"Hunh," he said a moment later. "That's weird."

"You see it,
don't you? Compared to the other output readings?"

"Yeah,"
Karnak whispered. "Yeah. Oh, Mynar. When's that output from?" he
asked, propelling himself back into his chair.

Tol read out
the
date code to Karnak. It had been two standard days ago. "First
watch," he added.

"Well,
surprise," Karnak told him. "No official base communications on that
watch, to anywhere that would've used that much power. We'll have to
check all
the personal accounts." He sat back, then turned to stare at Tol.
"Mynar," he breathed again. "Guess we'd better report. You want
to do the honours? You found it."

"Uh,
right," agreed Tol. He suddenly felt like an idiot. There was probably
some perfectly innocent explanation for the power drain. Maybe there
was even a
mistake in the readings.

But, they had been told to
look
for anything unusual.

He had another
idea. He swiftly typed in some calculations. Then he stared at the
answer he
got. His left tentacle jumped. "Oh, shit," he said.

"What?"

"Yeah," Tol
said numbly, "we'd better report." He looked at Karnak, wide-eyed
stare meeting wide-eyed stare. "I just checked. That's the same power
output it'd take to -- to send a message to Coruscant."

Darth Vader
woke to
the smell of his burned hair, his roasted flesh, his blood, and over
everything
the medicinal stink of fire-suppressant foam. He snarled, trying to
banish the
stench back to his memories where it belonged.

For a few
seconds
he wasn't sure where he was. Then he remembered. He switched on the
lights with
a thought, then stood up, irritated and surprised at how much his
muscles
ached. Especially those at the back of his neck. Getting too
old for this
kind of thing, he thought. He scowled at the pitiful attempt
at sleeping arrangements
he had constructed out of the berth's one chair and a pillow from the
bunk,
both of which he'd propped against the wall. Most of the pillow had
slipped
down behind the chair, providing not even the most mediocre substitute
for the
retractable head-rest with which the seat in his Meditation Chamber was
equipped. It didn't help, of course, that he'd gone to sleep still
wearing his
helmet. Pathetic, really, to put more value on his stupid pride than on
a
decent night's sleep. But he hadn't been able to conquer the irrational
fear
that Han Solo would come barging in here and be treated to a view of
Darth
Vader's face. Ha, not that that would necessarily be a bad thing. Then
maybe
his face would give someone else nightmares for a change.

He reached up
to
his chest box and made a slight adjustment on his suit's temperature
controls. Great,
and on top of everything else I'm getting more sensitive to cold. I'll
be
developing rheumatism, next. That is, assuming I've got enough of my
own joints
and muscles left to get rheumatism.

His sour
self-pity
was disrupted by a whispering sensation somewhere in his mind, the
sense of
someone else's presence. He homed in on it.

Leia.

He had tried to
contact both Leia and Luke earlier, before he slept, but had had no
success.
Now, he realised, Leia was trying to contact him. He focused on her,
concentrating on sending reassurance and encouragement. He could tell
that she
was afraid, but she didn't seem to be injured, nor in as much turmoil
as she
would have been if something had happened to Luke. That was a relief,
at least.
He tried to let her know that he and Han were on their way, but he
couldn't be
sure that his thoughts were getting through to her. For an instant he
thought
he caught a glimpse of her surroundings, some dim, low room, and felt
the hum
of a ship's engines, their resonance different from that on the Falcon. Then the
vision,
and the sense of her presence, was gone.

Vader took the
pillow from behind the chair and flung it back on the bed, on top of
the case
that held his portable infusion units. He should have known that trying
to
sleep would be a fruitless quest. Logically, he had told himself that
there was
no point in going into a probable combat situation without adequate
rest. But
hell, if rest had been his priority, he should have allowed Solo to
move his
"egg thing" on board. He'd been asleep for less than an hour, and
already he'd succeeded in giving himself a nightmare and a painful
cramp in the
neck. Not to mention almost missing Leia's attempt to contact him. No,
he could
definitely do without sleep.

He left the
tiny
cabin that Solo had grandiloquently termed the "guest quarters", and
started along the corridor toward the forward cargo hold that doubled
as ship's
lounge. It was strange, he thought, to be a passenger on this ship
rather than
chasing it around the galaxy. At least he knew the Falcon was fast. He
also
knew it had a tendency to break down every hour or so, but he would
just have
to hope that Solo had his repair kit handy and was not too out of
practice.

As he stepped
into
the lounge, he saw that Han Solo had got there before him. Han was
sitting
slumped at the holographic games board, staring dully at a selection of
small
holograph alien warriors that flickered on the board, patiently waiting
for him
to start the game. It didn't look like Han had any intention of
starting.

"General
Solo," said Vader. "Leia is all right. At least for the moment. I've
just been in contact with her."

"You
have!" exclaimed Solo, looking up with startled hope in his face.

"I'm sorry,
there
was nothing specific. I can't even tell if she knew she had reached me.
But she
is unhurt, and I believe Luke is as well. They seem to be still on
shipboard.
That's all I could sense; the contact was brief."

Han nodded,
then
stared down at the game board again. Vader glanced at the semi-circular
bench
which surrounded the board. "May I join you?" he asked.

Han looked up
once
more, tension and weariness showing clearly in his face. He nodded
again. Vader
sat down across the board from Han. The two men watched the
bored-looking
holographic aliens.

"We're
probably looking at another six hours now," Han said finally. "Any
idea what we do when we get there?"

"We should be
able to ascertain easily enough if Leia and Luke are there. If their
kidnapper
headed straight for Coruscant from Chandrila Seven, they should be
approximately four hours ahead of us, depending of course on their
speed. We
should begin monitoring Coruscant's flight control channels, to see if
any ship
matching the description we were given arrives there. Of course, if
they're
going straight to Palpatine, all communications will be on a secured
channel.
But I doubt that they've bothered to change all the access codes since
I left.
If they have, I should still have sufficient ... friends at the palace.
We will
be able to get the information we need."

Han nodded.
"And then?"

"I know of a
private landing pad whose owner owes me some favours. We can leave the Falcon there. As for
getting into the palace, if that's where they are -- well, I should be
able to
maintain an illusion that we are people who belong there. Would you
care to
join the Emperor's Personal Guard?"

Han managed a
grudging smile. "Just as long as we're not two stormtroopers with a
captured Wookiee. Chewie says he'll kill me if we ever try that
disguise
again."

Vader went on,
"I won't be able to keep up the illusion once we've started fighting,
so
we'll just have to hope that --"

His words broke
off
as the Falcon gave a wild
lurch. Vader had to grab the edge of the game board to keep
himself from tumbling onto the floor. Han did not do so well, and
landed with a
jarring thump on the metal deck. The holographic aliens winked out of
sight.

"What the
hell," Han yelled, scrambling to his feet. "We've been pulled out of
Hyperspace."

Han ran for the
corridor, without checking to see whether Darth Vader was following
him. As Han
neared the Falcon's cockpit,
there was another jolt, and sparks burst
from a collection of wires running along the corridor's ceiling.
"Shit," murmured Han, almost under his breath. He raced through the
cockpit door and threw himself into the pilot's seat. Chewie, already
at the
co-pilot position, greeted him with a series of infuriated roars.

"Shit!"
Han said again, this time in a yell. It looked bad. As Chewie was
informing
him, the moment they'd appeared in Realspace their opponent had opened
fire on
them. Their shields were down and, Chewie now yelped in rage, both the
turret
guns were off-line.

As if that
weren't enough,
the shots had been immediately followed by a tractor beam, which now
had them
securely caught. The Falcon's engine's
made an unhappy whine as they
struggled to counter the beam, and Han felt sick at the sound of them.

It shouldn't
have
been this easy. It was as if their enemy had known precisely how to
strike at
them with maximum effect.

He had, Han
realised. Because their enemy knew their ship and knew them.

Han stared at
the
forward viewscreen. He snarled, "Duduk."

The ship that
held
them in its tractor beam was a much-modified skipray blastboat, which,
Han well
knew, had not been acquired from its Imperial former owners by any
legal
method. Han tried to remember what Duduk had re-named the ship.
Something
pretentious, he was sure. And Duduk had certainly been adding to the
ship's
capabilities since the last time Han had run into him. Skiprays weren't
supposed to have tractor beams. And they definitely shouldn't be able
to pull
ships out of Hyperspace. "I don't believe it," Han protested.
"He's got himself a gravity well!"

Business must
have
been good, all right. Only Imperial Interdictor Cruisers had gravity
wells. To
install one in his ship Duduk had to have had a hell of a lot of money
and a
hell of a lot of friends in the right places.

"I take it you
know this individual?" Darth Vader's voice sounded from behind Han.

"Duduk
AlManara," Han grated. "Used to be co-pilot for Lando Calrissian.
Long time ago." Han opened a channel and hailed the skipray, though his
choice of greetings was not the most diplomatic. "Duduk, you bastard.
What
the fuck are you doing?"

A smug-sounding
voice said cheerfully over the com channel, "Solo, old pal, how's it
hanging?"

Han grimaced.
"Be hanging a lot better if I wasn't stuck in a tractor beam."

"Just my
little joke, pal. Just my way of saying 'howdy'."

"Howdy,"
snapped Han. "Can we go now?"

The voice
sounded
insincerely regretful. "Sorry, Han. No can do. See, I'm gonna have to
ask
you to hand over your passenger."

"Come on, Han,
you know you're the galaxy's worst liar. I am referring to that
notorious
intergalactic criminal, Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith. Now I'd hate to
have to
blow that sweet ship of yours out of space, so why don't you just be a
good
little humanoid and hand him over."

"Cut the crap,
Han," sighed Duduk, suddenly giving up on his tone of cheerful
bumptiousness. "I know he's on board and I'm going to take him. You can
either play nice or you can get hurt."

Han abruptly
closed
the communications channel. "Chewie," he said, "get up to the
turrets and see if you can get the guns back on line. Looks like we'll
have to
blast our way out of this. I'll keep him talking till you get the guns
working."

Chewie gave a
growl
of agreement and started out of the cockpit. As the Wookiee left, Vader
said to
Han, "I'll attempt to switch off the tractor beam. Be ready to make the
jump, if I manage it."

Han swung
around to
give him a quizzical look. Just like travelling with Ben
Kenobi, he thought. Except
that old coot had to turn tractor beams off by hand. "You're just
gonna switch it off by thinking at it?" Han asked dubiously.

"Yes."

Han shrugged.
"Whatever works ... " He opened the com channel again. "Duduk,
buddy, sorry to keep you waiting. Let's just go over this again. You're
saying
you think Darth Vader's on my ship ... "

"Han,
I don't want to kill you. I really don't. But he's the one worth the
credits.
I'm afraid you're expendable. And Chewbacca. And the Falcon."

"How many
credits?" Han asked, in a tone of sudden interest.

"One hundred
thousand, pal. You know, I might even let you have a cut -- a small cut
-- if
you turn him over."

"Well you
know, bud," Han continued stalling, "I might just want that one
hundred thousand for myself."

"You know, I'd
almost believe you," said Duduk, sounding amused, "if there was the
slightest little chance of you handing him over to Palpatine and
leaving
Coruscant alive. You ain't exactly on Palpatine's good list. Tell you
what.
I'll make the delivery, and you can have ... five percent."

"Five???"

"Final offer,
pal. Take it or leave it."

Come
on, Chewie, Han thought. Get
those guns working! He wondered
how Vader was doing with his thinking at
the tractor beam. He cast a glance at the Dark Lord, but of course the
man's
stance and his mask were revealing nothing. Or almost nothing. Both of
his
fists were clenched, which Han supposed might mean he was
concentrating.
Experimentally, Han made a cautious attempt at pulling the
Falcon out of the beam.
No surprise, the beam still held. But ... was it weaker? There'd been a
tentative
jolt from the Falcon, like they'd
almost managed to break free. Surely the
beam had been stronger when he'd first reached the cockpit. Hunh. Maybe
Vader's
thinking was doing something after all. Han started keying in a new
hyperspace
destination.

"Oh now look,
Duduk," he continued, trying another tack. "Maybe you oughtta take a
reality check, hunh? I mean, Vader's not some load of cargo I can just
hand
over. The guy's a fucking Jedi Master. He's not gonna just let you take
him.
He'd eat you for breakfast!"

Duduk laughed.
"Don't you worry about that, Han. Got it all under control. He's gonna
be
Palpatine's breakfast."

The hum of the Falcon's engines was
changing. They sounded more healthy again. The tractor beam was
definitely
weakening. Han wondered whether Duduk would notice it.

"Hey,
buddy," Han pleaded, "have a heart, will you?" In fact, he
remembered, Duduk had three hearts, but it was the thought that
counted.
"Give me a break. I can't turn him over -- he's my father-in-law! If I
let
Palpatine get him, my wife'll kill me!" Well, okay, Han thought, so
he's not officially my father-in-law, but it sounds a lot better than
"the
father of my girlfriend".

This argument
hadn't worked any better than the others. "So I'm doing you a
favour," Duduk said. "I thought most humanoids wanted to get rid of
their in-laws." All the joking left Duduk's voice. "Look, Han, I'm
gonna give you thirty seconds to make up your mind. You can hand him
over
peaceably, or I can blast the Falcon. Ol' Palp
won't pay as much
for Darth Vader in pieces, but it'll still give me enough to retire on."

Chewie!
Where
the hell are those guns!

Then a massive
shudder went through the Falcon.

My
gods, Han thought, he's
actually done it. The tractor beam is off!

Han reached for
the
lever to send them back into Hyperspace.

Duduk's skipray
opened fire.

The Falcon
reeled under the
impact. Han heard an anguished howl over the ship's intercom, and
realised to
his horror that Chewie only made that sound when he was in pain. That's
it,
Duduk, he thought. You are one dead
sonofabitch --

He pulled the
Hyperspace lever, but nothing happened. Oh, no.
Not again. Must've been
damaged by those last shots --

Then Han stared
at
the viewscreen. Suddenly he no longer understood what the fuck was
going on.

Duduk's ship
was
disintegrating. But Han knew that the Falcon hadn't fired
one shot.

Apparently,
that
didn't make any difference. The skipray was unmistakeably caving in on
itself.

For a second
longer
Han gaped at it, then he realised what was about to happen. With a
desperate
yell, he pulled the Falcon away.

The moment he
had
done so, the skipray's power core was breached by the ship's own
collapsing
wreckage.

The skipray
exploded.

Han squeezed
his
eyes shut against the searing light on the screen.

When the light
had
faded, and there was nothing to be seen except scraps of metal, Han
switched
the Falcon onto
autopilot. He stood up unsteadily, and when he turned away from
the viewscreen he discovered that Darth Vader was no longer in the
cockpit. The
disappearance caused him a momentary shiver of superstitious fear. Then
he
squelched that emotion and ran from the cockpit, toward the gun turrets.

At the foot of
the
ladder, Han saw Vader again. He was reaching up to help the
shaky-looking but
definitely alive Chewbacca, who was climbing down. As the Wookiee
reached the
bottom of the ladder and turned around, Han saw blood matting the fur
on one
side of his friend's face.

"Chewie --
" Han began.

Chewbacca
roared
that he was all right, and to prove it, reached out and enveloped Han
in one of
his best bone-crushing hugs.

"Okay, pal,
okay," Han protested. When the Wookiee released him, Han looked at his
companions and realised that the two of them were almost the same
height. Gods,
did Han ever feel short. "What happened?" he asked.

Chewie gloomily
informed Han that one of Duduk's last shots had hit the turret he'd
been
working in. The gun, he thought, was out of commission for good. They'd
have to
replace it. Chewie asked, was Duduk dead?

"Yeah,"
said Han. "He's dead. But I'd sure like to know how."

Darth Vader
said
calmly, "I apologise, General, if you wanted our opponent left alive.
He
could have survived if he hadn't fired on us. When he did -- I lost
control."

Han swallowed.
"Lost control how?"

"I was
angry," Vader admitted. "I was already focused on the inner workings
of his ship, it was fairly simple to activate the gravity well and turn
its
power onto the skipray itself. It would have been more difficult on an
Interdictor, but he'd neglected most of the safety precautions in
installing
it. I'm sorry if you wanted him to live."

"No," Han
said, trying to sound casual. "No, that's okay. He always was an
annoying
son of a bitch." But Han couldn't help envisioning the effects on
Duduk's
body of that massive increase in shipboard gravity. He felt vaguely ill.

He was
angry! Han thought. Oh,
gods, am I glad this guy is on my side!

Han took a deep
breath. "He hit the hyperdrive generator," Han reported glumly.
"It's gonna take a couple hours to repair. At least."

Darth Vader
sighed quietly.
"Why am I not surprised?"

Leia only
realised
that she had fallen asleep when the ceasing of the ship's engines
jarred her
awake. In the abrupt silence she struggled to her feet, her heartbeat
suddenly
racing and her stomach cramping with fear.

She was
determined
to look calm. She'd done this before, after all; captive princess was a
role at
which she had a lot of practice. She told herself, as long as
they don't
dress me up in a metal bikini, I'll be fine.

No matter how
calm
she might look, though, the tension was immense. Soon, she should find
out
where they were. And who had captured them. Her stomach twisted, and
she prayed
that she wasn't going to be sick again. That really wasn't the
impression she
wanted to give.

The door to the
cargo hold slid open. Leia blinked in the sudden increase of light.
Most of
that light was blocked out again an instant later when the bulky figure
of
their kidnapper appeared in the doorway.

She'd only got
the
briefest impression of their captor earlier. Now she watched its
approach in
fascinated dislike, wondering what race it belonged to and what planet
it came
from. She didn't think she'd ever seen one of these beings before. It
was, as
it had been when she was captured, brandishing a blaster pistol which
was wrapped
in one of its six tentacles. Two of the tentacles, which she now
noticed were
thicker than the others, served as legs. They were currently bent near
the
middle so the being could shuffle along on them, giving the impression
that it
was walking on its knees. Near the top of the rounded central body were
what
appeared to be two small, dark eyes, but Leia saw no other hint of a
face.

The being's
path
took it right though the small puddle of vomit, but it didn't seem to
notice.
Leia grimaced, reminding herself that there was no reason why other
species
should have the same sense of what was disgusting.

As Leia watched
her
captor moving closer, she was startled by the strength of the hatred
that
pulsed through her. For a moment her view of the being was obscured by
a vivid
image of Arin Pellar's dead face, and the pool of blood that had
surrounded it.

She thought if
there was any way that she could hurt this creature, she would do it.

The being
shuffled
to one side of the hold, moving aside to allow room for the figures
that
followed it. Leia saw, with a rapidly sinking heart, that they were two
soldiers in the uniform of the Imperial army. Between them floated a
repulsorlift sled. Cursing as they tried to manoeuvre the repulsorlift
in the
confined space, the soldiers moved it toward Luke's suspendor unit.

Leia's anger
surged
at the sight of Luke being treated like an item of cargo. She demanded,
her
voice slightly hoarse from disuse, "aren't you going to release him?"

For the first
time
Leia heard a voice emanating from their captor, seeming to emerge from
the base
of its body. The voice was sibilant and strongly accented, but the
Basic it
spoke was easily understandable. It said, "that is for his Master."

Leia wanted to
snap
that Luke didn't have a master, but she forced the words back. She had
a very
bad feeling that she knew exactly who this "master" was.

With
increasingly
bitter oaths, the two soldiers managed to raise Luke's suspendor unit
onto the
repulsorlift. They glanced questioningly at the kidnapper, who gestured
at the
door with one of its free tentacles. The soldiers guided the
repulsorlift and
its burden out of the cargo hold. When they were out of sight, the
kidnapper
moved its blaster toward Leia and then toward the door, and commanded,
"out."

Her hands still
fastened in front of her, Leia walked across the hold, haughtily not
glancing
at her abductor as she passed it.

As she stepped
through the door, she found herself in a corridor space which opened
immediately onto an exterior loading hatch. She was hit by fresh air
and
sunlight. The two soldiers and the unconscious Luke on his repulsorlift
were
nearing the bottom of the ramp that led out of the hatch. Leia glanced
back at
her captor, close behind her, who said "out", again. She shrugged,
and started down the ramp.

All of her
worst
fears were confirmed. She recognised this exterior landing bay -- not
that she
had been at this specific landing bay before, but the architecture
surrounding
it was unmistakable. The roseate sky, tinting the building's spires to
a warm
pinkish glow, was supposed to be attractive, but at the moment she
loathed it.
She loathed the clean, balmy air, as well, thinking of how different
the air
was in the lower levels of this city. Imperial City, Coruscant, the
"jewel
of the core worlds". It wasn't a jewel, she thought bitterly, it was a
necklace carved out of sentient beings' bones.

Judging by the
architecture, and the quality of the air, they must be very high up in
the
Imperial palace. There were no other skyscrapers visible besides the
palace's
own crystalline towers; Palpatine had made sure that no building in
Imperial
City could match his palace's majestic height. Leia had seldom been
this high
in the palace before. Only when she'd been officially received by
Palpatine on
her induction into the Senate, and on the two interminable occasions
when she'd
attended the Emperor's annual Senatorial banquet. She thought, that was
one
good thing at least about the Senate being disbanded. No one would ever
have to
go through that particular
horror again.

Leia followed
the
soldiers and the repulsorlift across the open bay toward an arched
doorway
elaborately carved in Kashandian acanthus patterns. She was glad to
find that
at least she was able to walk steadily; despite all her dread her legs
were not
giving up on her. The small procession, with the tentacled kidnapper
bringing
up the rear, passed under the archway and into the tall,
tapestry-draped
corridors of the palace. The air inside was heavy with incense. Leia
remembered
now that Palpatine loved incense, which was the main reason why she had
always
hated it. She had also forgotten, in the years since she had been here,
the
soft thickness of the carpet with which the corridors were lined. It
squished
buoyantly underfoot, giving the impression that one was walking on live
marsh
fungus.

The corridors
were
quiet, but not unpeopled. Every now and then their party passed a droid
trundling about its business, or a self-effacing, black robed Imperial
servant.
Neither of these groups paid them any noticeable attention, but the
same,
unfortunately, could not be said of the occasional Imperial noble --
"advisors", they were called, though Leia doubted that Palpatine was
in the habit of taking advice from anyone -- that they encountered.
Leia even
recognised a few of these, and passionately wished that she didn't.
Their
reactions varied, from open surprise to pursed-lipped disapproval to
disdainful
triumph. Leia determinedly ignored them, all the while wishing that she
could
take their stupid rubbish bin-like hats and shove them up their noble
bums. It
didn't help her self-confidence to realise how pathetically scruffy she
must
look. She had at least managed to avoid getting vomit on herself, but
Arin's
blood was all over one sleeve of her jacket, soaked deeply into the
gold braid
at the cuff. Her long skirt was irretrievably wrinkled, and anyway,
white was
not the best colour to wear when one was getting kidnapped. She thought
sourly
that she just ought to stop wearing white; she knew perfectly well how
filthy
white clothes could get when one was gallivanting around the galaxy in
them.
She didn't know what state the braided hairdo she had constructed
before the
long-ago cocktail party might be in. Luckily it was not one of her more
elaborate creations, so there was a chance that it might still look
halfway
respectable.

They were
nearing a
tall, black marble door, at which the corridor abruptly stopped. Leia
recognised the door to Palpatine's private office and audience chamber.
At
either side of the door stood a red-robed Imperial Guard.

The foremost of
the
two soldiers saluted and spoke in a quiet voice to the guards. Without
answering, the guard at the left of the door turned to the wall control
panel
which was almost hidden by the edge of a gleaming, iridescent tapestry.
He
keyed in a number sequence, and the door slid silently open.

"Enter,"
came a dry, rasping voice from inside the room. Leia immediately
recognised the
voice, and immediately remembered how much she hated it.

The two guards
marched in, with the repulsorlift between them. Leia, for a moment
unable to
control her instinctive horror, hesitated, until she felt her
kidnapper's
blaster pistol jab into the small of her back. Her mouth tightened and
she
raised her head defiantly. She stepped into the room.

Palpatine liked
the
sensation of being above everyone. The audience chamber was
dual-levelled. The
lower level on which the door opened led to a broad, black goldstone
staircase,
at the top of which sat Palpatine's desk and chair, with a vast arched
window
behind them. Outside the window soared the palace's rosy towers. The
room
itself was a rich, deep purple, the walls being drenched in hangings of
thick
purple velvet.

The guards
stood at
either side of the repulsorlift and bowed. Leia stood next to them, but
made no
such gesture. At her other side, the kidnapper lowered itself onto the
floor,
with the blaster set down in front of it, all of its tentacles curled
up
underneath its body. Leia had an insane urge to leap for the blaster.
Instead
she just looked up at the seemingly distant figure perched behind the
big desk,
watching them out of its beady yellow eyes.

Nausea washed
through her again, but she didn't think it was morning sickness this
time. Again
she had the sensation of having been through this all before, but it
was worse,
oh Gods so much worse than any previous time she'd been captured. What
she
wouldn't give to see Grand Moff Tarkin before her now, or Darth Vader.
Vader!
Gods, how she wanted to see him! She thought wildly that she would
forgive him
everything, everything. All the
murders, the torturing, the persecutions, if
only he were here now instead of the withered, smirking relic of
humanity at
the desk above them. She wondered how anyone could ever have trusted
Palpatine,
how he could ever have inspired any emotion save revulsion.

The guards
bowed
again, lower this time, and carefully lifted Luke's suspendor unit,
using none
of the swearwords they'd employed in the cargo hold. With exquisite
caution
they lowered the suspendor to the carpeted floor. They made a third
bow, then
they and the floating repulsorlift departed.

Palpatine stood
and
moved out slowly from behind his desk. He was wearing a black robe as
usual,
and his face was half-shadowed by its hood. His pale claw hands were
clasped in
front of him.

He smiled
broadly
at the respectfully huddled figure of the kidnapper.

The kidnapper
--
Datang, Leia supposed -- levered itself upward on its two most central
tentacles, picking up the blaster with a third. Datang hissed, "thank
you,
your Imperial Majesty."

"Leave us now,
my friend," Palpatine went on, with an airy flutter of his hand. "But
remain in the palace. I may have further need of you."

Datang lowered
itself halfway to the floor, then backed out of the room. The door shut
behind
it.

Leia was alone
with
her unconscious brother and with Emperor Palpatine.

The Emperor
beamed
patronisingly at her, as if she were a child that had just
distinguished itself
in some school competition. "Leia, my dear," he said, acknowledging
her for the first time. "How beautiful you look."

Oh gods, she thought, I
really am going to be sick all over this bastard.

Palpatine
started
down the staircase, his smile growing wider. "Your anger is
beautiful," he went on. "I like the freshness of it. Its vigour. It
is very powerful, my dear. I wonder if you realise how powerful you
could
be."

Since the only
response that sprang to her mind consisted of obscenities, Leia said
nothing.

"My sweet
child," Palpatine murmured. He was now standing on the lower level. He
said, his voice taking on a sorrowful tone, "your father's betrayal
wounded me deeply. More than you can dream. But all is not lost, since
his
children have come to me to take his place."

That almost
goaded
Leia into an angry response. But she knew that anything she might say
would be
useless.

Palpatine was
beaming at her again, with an avuncular smirk that made her flesh
crawl.
"Your future is with me, Leia. Your destiny is at my side."

Leia still
stared
at him in stony silence. He reached out a withered hand and for one
horrifying
instant she thought he was going to touch her, but all that happened
was that
the restraints opened and fell away from her wrists. She gasped at the
sudden,
painful return of sensation, and for the first time words were torn
from her. "Let
Luke go," she demanded.

Somehow the
Emperor's smile broadened even further. She shivered at the gaze from
his
glowing eyes. "You think that together the two of you can fight me,"
he breathed. "You cannot, my dear. But I will enjoy watching you
try."

He made another
tiny gesture, this time toward the suspendor unit. The lights on the
control
panel changed colour, and then the lid of the unit slid open. Slowly,
as the
force field decreased in intensity, Luke was lowered to the suspendor's
floor.
Leia hesitated an instant, then rushed to the unit, kneeling beside it.

Luke made a
vague,
sleepy murmur, and turned his head. One of his hands moved. Although
her own
hands were burning from their slowly returning circulation, Leia
reached in to
the unit and clasped her brother's hand. "Luke," she whispered.

His eyes
fluttered
open. For a moment they seemed distant and lost. Then suddenly they
widened, as
consciousness and memory both came back to him. He sat up abruptly, and
his
hand tightened around Leia's as he fought against dizziness. Leia
reached out
with her other hand to grab his shoulder and support him. They stared
at each
other, but there were no words that could be said. Leia realised that
Luke
could feel the Emperor's presence, and that although he had never been
here
before, he knew exactly where they were.

Unsteadily, he
got
to his feet, Leia helping him. He managed to step out over the edge of
the
suspendor unit without stumbling, but when he was standing beside her
Leia felt
him sway slightly, and was afraid that he would fall. They clutched at
each
other's hands, as if somehow that would keep them safe. And they faced
the
Emperor.

To Leia's
complete
astonishment, Luke made the sort of response that she had been wanting
to make
since this encounter started. "Fuck you, Palpatine," he grated.
"We're getting out of here."

Palpatine
laughed.
"What do you think you can accomplish, my young friend? Didn't our last
meeting teach you the truth about your helplessness?"

"We
can fight you," Luke said stubbornly. He drew his lightsaber, and its
blade hummed into life.

"No,"
Palpatine told him in a chilling whisper, "you cannot. You will not
try. I
have your sister, my little Jedi. And I have her children. And all of
their
lives are in my hands."

As he spoke,
Palpatine turned the glow of his yellow eyes back on to Leia.

She gasped,
then
the gasp turned into a short, choked-off scream. She fell to her knees,
clutching at her belly. There was a searing pain in her abdomen, but
worse, she
could hear her children.
She could hear them in her mind and feel their presence,
but that presence was being ripped away from her. Their voices were
twisting
with anguish and terror.

"No," she
gasped out, "no, please." She screamed. "Luke! Please!"

Luke retracted
his
lightsaber, then he threw himself down beside Leia, hugging her to him.
He
yelled at Palpatine, "stop it! Stop it!"

As suddenly as
it
had hit her, the pain was gone. And the screams ceased, but she could
still
hear their echoes in her mind.

She stared up
at
Palpatine. "Are they all right?" she demanded.

The Emperor
smiled
at her again. "Of course, my dear. I would not wish to hurt your
children.
And my future servants. I will not hurt them. Unless I have to."

The hatred she
felt
for him was stronger, she thought, than anything she had ever felt in
her life.

Palpatine was
continuing smoothly, "you're tired after your long journey. You will be
shown to your quarters. After you have rested and dined, I will see you
again."

The purple
velvet
drapes on one wall parted to reveal an opening door, and a droid
whirred in to
the Audience Chamber. "I will guide you to your rooms," the metallic
voice announced.

This time it
was
Luke who helped the still trembling Leia to her feet. He paused for a
last
impotent glower at the Emperor, then with his arm still around Leia's
shoulders, he started walking with her toward the waiting droid.
"Follow
me, please," the droid said politely, and it led them out of the room.

They did not
speak
as they followed the droid along another corridor, the walls lined with
the
same purple drapery as in the Emperor's office. After they had passed
four
doors on each side, the droid stopped at one door on their left and
keyed in a
code on the pad beside the doorframe. The droid stood aside. "Welcome
to
the guest quarters. I hope everything is to your satisfaction. If you
require
anything I can be summoned from the panel inside the door."

Leia looked at
Luke,
who was eyeing her worriedly as if he feared she would break.
Personally, she
was not at all convinced that she would not. She said shakily, "if we
run,
he'll know. Won't he. And he'll find us."

Pain crossed
Luke's
face. "Yes," he admitted.

She nodded, and
stepped into the guest quarters. Luke followed her. The door slid
closed behind
them.

They were in a
luxuriantly appointed lounge, with, thank the gods, red wall hangings
instead
of that damnable purple. One wall was entirely window, with the turrets
of the
palace and, far in the distance, of the rest of Imperial City, spread
out in an
entrancing vista beyond it. The lounge held a wide selection of chairs
and
sofas, a table of dark, intricately carved wood, and even what appeared
to be a
liquor cabinet in one corner. To the left were two doors, which Leia
guessed
led to bedchambers, and on the right an open door through which she
caught
sight of an apparently vast, opalescent marble bathroom. There seemed
to be a
sunken bath at the centre of the room, from which steam was rising
lazily.

It looked
wonderful, but right now Leia couldn't bear the thought of anything
wonderful.
She sat down on the nearest of the sofas and buried her face in her
hands.

She looked up
at
him, tears streaking her face. "Arin's dead," she told him, her voice
raw and painful. "It's my fault. I sent him to look for you. That
creature
-- with the tentacles -- Datang, that's its name -- Datang killed him."

"Oh, gods,"
Luke whispered. "How? Did it ... did it shoot him?"

She smiled
bitterly. "Oh, yes," she said, "it shot him. It must have
half-strangled him, too, there were bruises and cuts all around his
neck. And
then it must have thrown him against a wall. The back of his skull was
smashed."

Luke's face
twisted
with sorrow. He looked down at his hands. "It's my fault," he
whispered. "Not yours."

She stood up
suddenly, with a smile that she knew must look absolutely terrifying.
"It's Datang's fault," she said. "And Datang's going to die.
I'll kill Datang. No matter what."

"Leia!"
Luke exclaimed, shocked. He stood up as well. "Leia, please. Don't give
in
to hate. Hatred will make you like the Emperor. He'll win."

"I don't care.
Datang is going to die." She meant it, too. She thought, that
is it. I won't
take any more of this. I won't let the people I care about be hurt any
longer.

For a moment
she
just glared, as if all her enemies could hear her challenge. Then her
gaze
shied away from the hurt in LukeÕs. "I'm going to take a
bath," she
declared wearily. "If Palpatine wants to see us before I get out, tell
him
to go fuck himself." She strode away toward the open bathroom door.

Luke was left,
and
he thought that he felt more alone than he ever had before.

Darth Vader was
stretched out on his side, as lying on his front would have run the
risk of
accidentally switching off some crucial system on his chest-box
controls. He
was reaching up with a laser screwdriver into the dim, wire-filled mess
behind
one of the access panels, wondering how this damned ship had lasted
this long
without killing everyone aboard it.

Vader had been
assigned this particular task after he'd told Solo that his vision
could be
enhanced to the point where he wouldn't need a torch to assist him.
When Solo
had been sprawled down here, the Correllian had kept dropping either
torch or
screwdriver or both, and hitting his head when he brought it back up
too far
after scrabbling around to retrieve them.

Vader didn't
mind
the work. He had often made his own adjustments and improvements on the
fighters and shuttles at his disposal, and always enjoyed it. He
admired what
Solo had accomplished with this ship -- or he would admire it, if only
Solo
were a bit more organised about it. When the Falcon did eventually
get
annihilated, it wouldn't be due to enemy fire but to Solo connecting
the wrong
wires, or dropping a screwdriver where it didn't belong.

Vader was
attempting to re-connect the deflector shields. A few metres away, Solo
had
another access panel open and was coaxing the temperamental hyperdrive
generator back into working order. They'd been here for two and a half
hours
now -- Chewbacca was back at the task of reviving the turret guns --
and in
that time, scarcely one word had been spoken.

Darth Vader was
himself a master of unnerving silences, but this particular silence was
starting to annoy him. He already felt somewhat ridiculous at having
apologised
to Solo for the death of this Duduk character. Apologising was not
something
Vader had done very frequently over the past couple of decades. But it
had
seemed to be the wisest course. He already had enough problems with
Leia,
without her boyfriend nursing new grudges against him.

Vader wondered
whether he ought to bring up the subject again, but when he cast out
his senses
to feel Solo's emotions he didn't pick up any major guilt or confusion
over
Duduk's loss. Good. Vader had not particularly relished the idea of
counselling
him about it. He didn't want to ask "do you want to talk about it?",
and he certainly wasn't going to make some kind of poncy speech
interpreting
Han's feelings for him. He had always hated the practice of
re-interpreting
people's feelings in Jedi-speak. People had a right to their own
emotions,
without the Jedi telling them what those emotions were.

But having
ruled
out that topic of discussion, he could think of precisely nothing to
talk
about.

Talking about
the Falcon was not an
intelligent notion, since he was likely to slip up and say something
snide, and
send Solo into a melt-down of outraged protectiveness. So what did that
leave?
Besides his ship, what was Solo interested in?

Hell, for that
matter, what was Vader interested in?

It was
obviously no
good talking about the Force; that would go straight over Solo's head.
Vader
didn't know if Solo was a follower of any sports, and it wouldn't have
helped
if he did know, since Vader's familiarity with contemporary sports
coverage was
about as extensive as Solo's knowledge of the Force. Vader could not
possibly
have cared less than he did about the fortunes of the Corellian bryasha
team or
Coruscant's hyperpolo league. He did not keep up with any of the
popular
holo-dramas, had no idea who might be the leading musicians of the
moment, and
wouldn't have recognised any of today's holo film stars even if they
were dying
in agony in front of him.

This was
ludicrous.
He must once have known how to maintain conversations! So what in the
hell had
he talked about?

The
weather? he thought wryly. That'd
make an interesting conversation, since we've both been living on Omean.

He'd talked
about
politics, he supposed. The war. The perniciousness of the Jedi. On
certain
(usually drunken) occasions, the mysterious nature of women.

At least that
last
choice was one probable common ground, but it would also probably cause
more
trouble than it was worth. Leia was about the only interest that the
two of
them shared, but Vader could hardly launch into any fatherly
reminiscences,
since the majority of his contact with her had consisted of pursuit and
torture. She hadn't even impinged on his consciousness until she became
a
suspected enemy of the Empire. When she gave her first speech in the
Senate, he
hadn't even been on Coruscant, he'd been suppressing the revolt in the
Catalath
sector. He only knew this because he had looked it up, on the Executor's recent
history
database, a couple of months ago. He wanted to convince himself that he
had
noticed her, that he'd felt some connection, but no, the first memory
he had of
her was when her records had appeared in the file of suspected traitors.

He did remember
what he'd thought then. He'd looked at her picture, thought how bloody
young
Senators were these days and that embryos were going to be running for
Senate
next, and moved on to the next possible traitor.

It was
infuriating.
He didn't even have any pictures of Leia or Luke as children. He could
have got
some easily enough in her case at least, from the files on Prince Bail
Organa.
But thus far he had resisted the urge. It was just too damned bloody
sentimental, and too humiliating.

All right. It
was
either talk about the Millennium Falcon, or talk about
nothing. He
would just have to make an extra effort to restrain any snide comments.
He
said, picking at random one of Solo's many adjustments to the Falcon, "I noticed
the modifications on the gravity-flux compensator. Is the design yours?
I
wouldn't have thought it would work in a ship of this size."

He felt
surprise
from Solo, and a hint of gratified pride. "Yeah, it's mostly my design,
mine and Chewie's. We had some help from this guy who used to hold the
Kessel
Run record. He'd done a lot of modifications to improve his Run, he was
the one
who came up with the idea about the compensator. The ships he was
working with
were a lot smaller, though."

Vader said,
putting
aside the screwdriver and reaching for the small laser beam wire
clippers,
"it must require constant maintenance to stop it from going
off-line?"

"It
does," Solo replied. "It and every other system on the ship."
Solo was warming to his topic. "That's what a lot of people don't
understand. They think the Falcon's just a hunk
of junk. They
don't realise she's got the systems of eight different ships inside
her. It's
no wonder she gets touchy sometimes; those systems were never meant to
go
together. It's not her fault."

Vader ventured,
knowing that this suggestion might cause Solo to explode, but thinking
that he
ought to say it anyway, "have you kept a record of all the
modifications?
I know you don't want anyone else to work on your ship. But if you were
willing
to allow it, and all the adjustments were noted down, it'd be possible
to keep
up a regular maintenance schedule on the Falcon, that didn't
put all the
burden on you and Chewbacca. We might be able to forestall most of the
break-downs
before they happen." Oops, he'd ended up mentioning the Falcon's problems
after
all. So much for his good intentions.

"Yeah,"
Han said brusquely. "Maybe."

At least the
Corellian did not seem especially angry. Rather, Vader could sense
Han's
surprised, if grudging, pleasure, that someone was actually taking an
interest
in his ship.

This feeling
gradually transformed into hesitation, and then into a jolt of reckless
decision.

"Vader,"
Solo began, "you mind if I ask you a question? Something I've been
wondering, for a while."

What
the hell?
Well, only one way to find out. "Ask," Vader
told him.

"What really
made you join the Rebellion? Was it just because of Luke and Leia, like
you
said?"

"Primarily,"
Vader answered. Then he added, out of a trouble-making urge to see how
Solo
would react to this next statement, "and I was probably suffering from
a
mid-life crisis."

Solo's reaction
was
most gratifying. He yelped out an incredulous "what?", and from the
dull thud that followed the word, he had once again bumped his head
against
something.

Vader
continued,
"it's the right timing for one, after all. I'm fifty-two this year."

Solo still
couldn't
seem to get his brain around this concept. "A mid-life crisis?"

"Yes. You know,
you find yourself in a dead-end job ... personal life going nowhere..."
Suddenly, Vader had no more wish to continue this game. However much he
might
try to present it to himself as a joke, what he was saying to Solo was
basically the truth. Vader sighed and focused on a small nest of
still-tangled
wires.

They both fell
silent. Then Solo asked, his voice so quiet that Vader could barely
hear it,
"Vader? What happened with you and your family? How come you didn't
know
about Leia and Luke?"

Damn.

Well, it was
his
own fault. He was the one who had brought up the subject of his
personal life,
or lack of one. He'd left himself open to just this sort of question,
and he
couldn't blame Solo for accepting the invitation.

Vader began,
somewhat
surprised to find that his voice was steady and he could make himself
say the
words, "my wife left me when she learned she was pregnant."

At least, he
supposed that she had known about it when she left him. From the
timing, that
seemed the most logical conclusion. Damn. He did not
want to think
about this again. He said with finality, "she never told me about
them."

"Oh,"
Solo said uncomfortably. "I'm sorry." Vader could feel the younger
man's embarrassment at discussing such a personal subject, but he could
also
feel a sort of empathic horror from Solo. The Corellian was imagining
what it
would feel like to have something like that happen to him.

Solo tried to
ask,
"this was when you were still -- uh, before you -- er, I mean -- "
the words trailed out in a surge of embarrassed confusion.

"Before I
turned into a mechanised man of mystery?" Vader asked dryly. "Yes. It
was."

"I wasn't
going to put it like that," Solo protested. Then he rushed on
recklessly,
before his natural suspicion of emotions -- and of Darth Vader -- could
hold
himm back. "Look, Vader, I want you to know -- I do love Leia. I'm
going
to do everything I can to make her happy. And keep her safe. I don't
want you
to think I would ever hurt her -- "

The
poor
bastard, Vader thought, in sudden amusement. He's
probably been sweating over
this ever since Leia's long-lost father popped out of the woodwork.
He's been
expecting that I'll demand to know his intentions. Or, more likely,
just
strangle him.

"General
Solo," Vader told him, "believe me. If I had any objection to your
relationship with my daughter, you would know of it."

"Uh --
right." Mentally blushing, though Vader could not see whether his face
was
following suit, Han turned all his attention to the Hyperspace
generator. Or at
least, he tried to. A moment later, however, he said, somewhat
awkwardly,
"and look, you can stop calling me General. I can't stand it when
people
call me that. Makes me feel like I oughtta have a paunch and big
sideburns and
a monocle."

Vader thought
how
very far this conversation had gone from anything he'd expected. "Han,
then," he said. "All right?"

"Yeah,
fine." Then Han's usual sense of humour kicked in again, and he added,
"Darth. Or would you rather I called you 'dad'?"

Darth Vader
sighed.
Well, you asked for this, he told
himself. You're the one who decided you
wanted a family again.

"No," he
said wearily, "'Darth' will do fine."

Luke was
watching
Leia sleep.

She'd emerged
from
her bath a few minutes ago, wearing a soft white robe which she must
have found
in the bathroom. There was plenty of clothing provided for them in the
bedchambers as well. Luke had discovered this while his sister was
bathing. He
didn't imagine that Palpatine had picked out the clothes himself, or
had been
keeping tabs on Luke and Leia's tastes in fashion, but the presence of
the
clothing did show that they had been expected and prepared for. The
realisation
made Luke nervous, as he wondered how long Palpatine had been planning
for
their arrival.

He'd mentioned
the
clothes to Leia when she got out of the bath, but she had just
ill-temperedly
enquired whether there were any metal brassieres for her, and then
curled up on
top of one of the beds and almost immediately fell asleep. Luke was
sitting on
one corner of the bed -- the bed was larger than Luke's entire quarters
back on
Omean -- and watching her.

He didn't
understand what was happening to her. Of course she felt bad about
Arin's
death; so did he. And of course it wasn't any fun to be kidnapped by
the mad
monarch of the galaxy. They were going to have to get out of here,
somehow,
though at the moment he didn't have any ideas as to how. And, he
supposed, she
had her babies to worry about now, not just herself. That couldn't be
helping
matters.

But still, he
was
so used to Leia being the calm one, the one who could keep the rest of
them on
track. Throughout all the shit they'd been through, she'd seemed to
stay
strong, pure in her beliefs, assured of herself and who she was. When
Luke got
lost in identity crises, or Han went through one of his bouts of
desperate
self-centredness, or the Rebellion itself seemed set to degenerate into
chaos,
it was always Leia, he thought, who pulled them out of it.

But now --
well,
she was still strong, all right. But this anger in her was new to him.
It was
as if she intended to take a stand this time no matter who she had to
hurt by
doing so. That frightened him. There was a hardness in her that he
didn't
recognise. Or rather, he thought he did recognise it, but not as part
of the
Leia he knew. It reminded him of their father.

He wished he
could
guide her somehow. He ought to be able to.
If Ben or Yoda were here, they
would be able to. But he wasn't Ben or Yoda. He knew he should be able
to help
her, but he didn't know how. It seemed like all he could do was recycle
his
teachers' pithy sayings, but somehow they never sounded so pithy coming
from
him. And then of course, there was Vader, who was always willing to
express an
opinion on any questions Luke had, but who didn't seem to be in the
business of
dispensing spiritual words of wisdom. Good thing, too, Luke thought
ruefully.
If he had Ben and Yoda's philosophies and Vader's mixed
up in his head,
his brain would probably suffer a matter/anti-matter explosion.

Suddenly Luke
felt
an upsurge of fear and pain. It wasn't his own. Instinctively he
reached toward
Leia, and as he did so she screamed and sat bolt upright. She was
clutching the
pillow with one hand and staring at him wildly. "Leia," Luke said
desperately. "Leia, it's me."

For another
moment
she didn't seem to understand him. Then, surprising him, she flung
herself into
his arms, shuddering against him. He felt her still-damp hair against
his face
and neck, and smelled the hint of some floral scent. Her fingers dug
into his
shoulders. He caught himself wishing, for one instant, that she wasn't
his
sister, but he sternly pushed that thought aside.

"Luke,"
she sobbed out. "He crashed. I saw it. He -- everything was burning --
Oh,
Luke, he was so afraid -- everything hurt -- so much --"

She pulled away
from Luke, but still clutched at his shoulders. There was a weird
urgency in
her face, as if she was desperate to make him understand. "Luke, he
broke
all of his ribs. Every oneof
them. And -- and his arms, and --
and his face was burned, and -- oh Luke, they thought he was dead. They
were
laughing at him. They were saying -- saying things -- "

"Who,
Leia?" Luke asked, as her words ran down. "What have you seen? Is
something going to happen to Han?"

She looked at
him
as if he was out of his mind. "No," she said. "Our father."

He stared at
her in
amazement. She let go of his shoulders and moved away, sitting huddled
on one
edge of the bed. He moved closer to her, putting an arm about her. He
half
expected her to push him away, but she did not. After a few moments she
looked
up at him.

"Luke,"
she said earnestly, "do you know what happened to him? How did he
become
Darth Vader?"

This was the
first
time she had brought up the subject of Vader in conversation with Luke.
She'd
listened to him talk about their father, but never before had she been
willing
to discuss Vader herself.

Luke shook his
head. "I've never asked him," he said. "I -- guess I didn't know
how to. And Obi Wan never really told me. He just said Anakin had been
seduced
by the Dark Side. I guess I'd kind of assumed they fought about that,
and that
maybe he was injured --"

"No," she
said, without any doubt in her voice. "He crashed. He was flying an
x-wing, or something like it. I saw it, Luke. I
felt it."
Leia's hand, startlingly cold, closed around Luke's. "Luke, I have to
find
out what happened to him. I think we both have to."

Slowly, Luke
nodded. A chilling thought occurred to him. He tried to ignore it, but
he
couldn't. "Well," he said, "there's one way we could try to find
out. But -- we can't know what would happen if we did. It could make
everything
worse."